The Story of English in India by Prof. N. Krishnaswamy and Lalitha Krishnaswamy; Foundation Books; Price: Rs.150; 226 pp Undoubtedly in terms of geographic spread if not numbers, it is the most widely spoken language in India. If today a businessman or professional (lawyer, architect, engineer, medical practitioner) from Bangalore can travel to Kolkata or from Jammu to Thiruvananthapuram and expeditiously transact his business before returning to base within a day or two, it’s because of Macaulay’s gift to the people of India — the English language. Despite the obvious benefit of this unintended linguistic legacy of our erstwhile masters — or perhaps because of its historical association — there’s no dearth of supra nationalists who are dead set against acquainting India’s children with this now indisputably dominant language of international business and diplomacy. Never mind the tiny inconvenient detail that almost every head of household across the country — from the miserable bonded labourer in rural Bihar to the emaciated rickshaw puller in communist-ruled Kolkata — dreams of a ‘convent’, i.e English medium, education for his children as their passport out of generations of poverty and inequity. Ascribe it to another ‘only in India’ contradiction, but English or more accurately ‘Inglish’, although the most widely used language in India and lingua franca of business, the judiciary, Constitution and Parliament, is not listed as one of the 15 official languages of India (check your currency notes). In the original Constitution of India approved by Parliament on January 26, 1950, it was accorded the status of a bridge national language for a mere 15 years, after which Hindi — numerically the most widely spoken language in the country — would become the sole national language. Came 1965 and people of the non-Hindi belt states, and southern states in particular, quite logically felt that adoption of Hindi would tilt the playing field in terms of access to government, corporate and teaching jobs in favour of natural Hindi speaking people. Instead it seemed fairer to adopt the admittedly imported language in the learning of which considerable investment had already been made during the past century of British rule, i.e English. Thus it came to pass that following rioting, public affray and immolations, Parliament relented and the Official Language Amendment Act, 1967 which affirmed that “English will continue as an associate official language for an indefinite period” was enacted. And this is the official status in contemporary India of Macaulay’s gift of tongue, which gives India a cutting edge in this age of outsourcing and global markets. The history of English in India and its metamorphosis from a language somewhat reluctantly recommended as the official medium of education by the imperious Lord Macaulay (1800-1859) to the East India Company in 1832 “to form a class of interpreters between us and the millions we govern” to its present status as the de facto national language, is traced in this marvelously well-written book authored by Prof. N. Krishnaswamy, former professor of English at the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad,…
